Measurement of the Berry curvature of solids using high-harmonic spectroscopy

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 916 - 6
• Main Authors: Luu, Tran Trung, Wörner, Hans Jakob
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 02.03.2018; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/125; 639/624/400/385; 639/624/400/3923; Curvature; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mechanics (physics); multidisciplinary; Optical lattices; Physics; Polarimetry; Polarization; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Solids; Spectroscopy; Spectrum analysis; Transport theory
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03397-4

Berry phase and Berry curvature have become ubiquitous concepts in physics, relevant to a variety of phenomena, such as polarization, various Hall effects, etc. Studies of these phenomena call for characterization of Berry phase or curvature which is largely limited to theory, and a few measurements in optical lattices. In this work, we report polarimetry of high-harmonic emission from solids and exploit this novel capability to directly retrieve the Berry curvature of α -quartz. We show that the two manifestations of broken inversion symmetry in solids lead to perpendicular or parallel polarization of even harmonics with respect to the driving field. Using semiclassical transport theory, we retrieve the Berry curvature from spectra measured in perpendicular polarization, the results being supported by ab initio calculation. Our work demonstrates an approach for the direct measurement of Berry curvature in solids, which could serve as a benchmark for theoretical studies. The Berry phase and curvature have become important concepts in many different fields of physics. Here, Luu and Wörner directly retrieve the Berry phase using polarimetry of extreme ultraviolet high harmonic generation in α -quartz.